Carroll grinned and left, and then for two days devoted himself to a study of the conditions surrounding the murder—­that and routine matters.  The trunk, for instance, was duly returned by the railroad from New York, and Carroll and his friend made a minute investigation of every article contained therein.  Their search was well-nigh fruitless.  The trunk contained little save the wardrobe of a well-dressed man—­suits, shirts, underwear, shoes, caps.  There were also golf and tennis togs; a few books; a handsome leather secretary, containing a good many personal letters and one or two business missives which were of little interest.  Altogether the examination of the trunk—­a process which occupied three hours—­established nothing definite, save that there was nothing to be discovered.  Its results were hopelessly negative.

Meanwhile the city sizzled with gossip of the Warren murder.  The seemingly impenetrable mystery surrounding the case, its many sensational features, the admission of the police department that the woman in the case was not Hazel Gresham, fiancee of the dead man, yet the certainty that there was a woman, and that she was of the better class—­all this served to keep the tongues of men and women alike wagging at both ends.

Carroll was besieged with anonymous letters.  Dozens of prominent married women were mentioned as having been, at one time or another, the object of Warren’s amorous attentions.  Carroll read each one carefully and filed it away.  He had hoped for this, but the results had far exceeded his expectations, and he found himself bewildered rather than assisted by the response from nameless individuals who were morbidly eager to be of help.

The detective knew that the running down of each individual trail—­the investigation of each of Warren’s supposed affairs of the heart—­would be an interminable procedure.  And so far not a single one of the letters had varied from another.  They connected Warren’s name with that of some married woman, and let it go at that.  It was quite evident that the dead man had been very much of a Lothario; too much so for the mental ease of the investigator who was struggling to link the cause of his death with one particular affair.

The reporters allowed their imaginations to run wild.  The story was what is known, in the parlance of the newspaper world, as a “space-eater.”  City editors turned their best men loose on it and devoted columns to conjecture.  There was little definite information upon which to base the daily stories that were luridly hurled into type.  Thus far Spike Walters, driver of taxicab No. 92,381, was the only person under arrest, and only those persons too lazy to exercise their minds were willing to believe that Spike was guilty or that he knew more of the crime than he had told.

Carroll read each news story attentively.  No wild theory of a pop-eyed reporter, hungry for fact, was too absurd to receive his careful attention.  But they proved of little assistance.  With the spot-light of publicity blazing on the crime, the investigation seemed to have become static.  There was no forward movement; nothing save that in the brain of David Carroll salient facts were being seized upon and meticulously catalogued for future reference.